Product category:
Electronics Manufacturing Services
News Release from: Tecan | Subject: Micro-engineered electroformed metal parts
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 25 January 2002
Photo-electroforming provides precise
components
Micro-engineered electroformed metal parts are gaining rapid ground, where traditional machined components cannot compete.
Micro-engineered electroformed metal parts are gaining rapid ground, where traditional machined components cannot compete Across a vast range of applications in electronics design and manufacturing they offer new and unprecedented cost/performance ratios with unparalleled performance characteristics
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 24 Oct 2000 at 8.00am (UK)
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Novel manufacturing techniques developed by Tecan are allowing designers to specify increasingly small and complex metal parts.
Typical tolerances can be as fine as +/-8um, and in some cases tolerances of +/-2um can be achieved.
Single-thickness and three-dimensional parts can be produced readily.
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"One of the greatest benefits to our customers, is an increasing appreciation of photo-electroforming (PEF) and the opportunities it offers their designers as they liaise with our own", said Noel Cherowbrier, Tecan's sales and marketing director.
"As designers' relationships develop, they increasingly realise that we can make micro-metal components with more exacting designs and tighter tolerances than they ever realised was traditionally achievable.
Unique and extremely sophisticated three-dimensional parts are now being conceived as OEM engineers and designers think laterally with the wider technology envelope available to them - through the traditional x-y axis, and now beyond - through exploitation of the z axis too." A recent example came in the form of a single order, worth GBP 0.5 million, from a prestige international medical equipment company.
Following a development period which moved away from the company's original component design, which was prone to production and repeatability problems, a completely new part was conceived.
This can described as an open-topped oblong box, measuring just 787 x 1980um and with side walls 100um high and only 130um thick.
Crucially, the multilevel process provides the 32um-thick base of the ultraminiature box with a mesh matrix of tiny holes, each just 50.6um across.
Not only does the new all-in-one part significantly exceed the original specification, it is cost-effective and consistently accurate.
It is quick and easy to assemble and offers optimum yields.
A further example, developed for a world-leading electronics company, is a 45um-thick gold-plated encoder disk featuring a series of round holes, each only 35um in diameter with a tolerance of +/-5um - in this case first samples were produced within one working week.
Electroforming business at Tecan almost doubled last year, the expansion continues and is now tangibly reflected in a dedicated GBP 1 million new building.
This is currently under construction and due for completion in early summer, it will house state-of-the-art equipment and a Class 1000 clean room with selected integral Class 100 areas.
The facility will produce next-generation PEF parts with even tighter tolerances, higher precision, finer definition, and greater 3D aspect ratios - for use in electronics, space, aerospace, medical, optical and measurement markets.
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